As long as you warm up, it probably doesn't matter how you do it. I sympathise with the initial climb, though at my place, I have to climb to get home. Fortunately, I'm getting stronger now and not noticing it as much but at the end of a long run, the last thing you need is to have any sort of impediment to getting home.

It's funny, but I've been wanting to get back into riding for the obvious health benefits and the enjoyment for years, but kept putting it off over and over again. I think the secret was deciding to go in the BRisbane to Gold Coast ride in October. This actually gave me a reason to train (obviously my health isn't the best motivator for me).

I'm now starting to think what ride I'll do after this one to keep the training going.

Does that mean if I say I want to do the Etape de Tour,say I am dedicated,train to climb (laughing behind chubby hand)and wear a beret my wife will have no choice but to let me go and suffer like a dog?.
PS...has anyone ever done an etape?.

Probably not but seeing as I don't know what it is, I can't really say for sure

So, what on earth is it? (something horrible I bet)

Richard

The Etape du Tour translates into "Stage of the Tour".It is run over the hardest stage of the tour de france each year....awesum ride,hard to enter from here unless you have someone who can send you velo mag from france real quick as that is the only way to enter unless you want to get stung by organised tour.check it out.....
http://www.letapedutour.com/2007/ETDT/p ... /index.htm

toolonglegs wrote:Does that mean if I say I want to do the Etape de Tour,say I am dedicated,train to climb (laughing behind chubby hand)and wear a beret my wife will have no choice but to let me go and suffer like a dog?.PS...has anyone ever done an etape?.

In theory .... yes, but you'd also want to throw a baguette in the handlebar basket, and bring on a bad french accent as well

my french accent is pretty good although my 3 year old daughter often corrects me which is a tad embarrassing "no papa,your not saying it right!" (in french of course)...
as for the etape....would love to be at 2600 metersthinking of you sipping red richard

Has anyone read Tim Moore's 'French Revolutions' ? He's a comedy travel writer who decided to do the tour route just before the TdF. In typical style, he protrays himself as an utter incompetant with no idea and less fitness, but when you read what he actually achieves, the man knew something about bikes. The book does put some of those climbs into perspective though.

And what does this have to do with our friend inaminit?
Inspiration!
Reading about other sort of normal people (any cyclist is only 'sort of normal') achieving fantastic things. It's a great motivation for leaping on the bike, just as watching the heros in the TdF or riding off to watch the local big name stage race such as the TdU or the Suntour.

Sorry we have wandered a bit.Well done Anthony for keeping it going,I think a lot of people get into cycling,get a sore arse then park the bike and there it stays.You are obviously well past that stage,probably at that stage when you are starting to develop some power...it is a great feeling when you power of a hill that used to make you struggle,keep it up!.
I find that the hardest part is getting out the door,especially if you have had 4 or 5 days off,also personally I take 30minutes to warm up.
I haven't read that book Richard but will look out for it,my plan last time in France was to do some big French climbs...the only known one I ended up doing was Galibier,wasn't hard or easy....just a long plod.It was 100k away from home to the base of Alpe dues huez.But I did spend a lot of time on a local climb which to the summit and back was 100k with 15k climb to the summit,like you know I cant climb but love it....and after a week of climbing your style really changes.But then I got really sick (2 weeks of explosive you know what)So ended up driving a lot of climbs to watch the tour instead of riding....was amazing but would have been so much better if I didn't have a fever,not a toilet or tree in sight,20,000 people around waiting for Rasmussen to come thru on the col de crois fer.So maybee next year...I agree it is good to set goals,some short term,some long term...and as I have now been healthy for 3 months (the first time since Oct 2005) I might actually acheive some!!!!

Cheers guys, one of the best inspirations I have comes from some of the old guys in their late 60's and 70's who i've got to know theough riding. They have the patience to put up with me, the knowledge to help me ride better, and the legs and lungs to blow me off the road if they wanted to I see them and know there is hope for me yet!

Toolong, those rides would be brilliant. I think I'll have to add that to my list of goals. bit out of my league at the moment, but who knows, maybe next year.

My wife has always wanted a holiday in France...I wonder what she'd say if I booked a seat for the bike as well

Finally got to join a group of about 25 riders for my first bunch ride on the road. I've been doing some on a closed training circuit, but it sure is different when you have to worry about crap on the road, potholes, road works, cars etc.

One of the guys I ride with occassionally invited me along and said they leave Burleigh out to the Currumbin Rock Pools and back for a coffee.

Thought this would be brilliant as I could have a crack at fairly long climb, and by the time I rode to meet them and then home again it would be around the 50km I had scheduled for today.

Was I in for a surprise. By my standard, these guys were fast. To my surprise, I managed to hang on to them up to the Rock Pools, which I thought was the turnaround, but the buggers kept going. I was hurting, but hung on anyway.

About 3 or 4 more k's and I just couldn't keep up and I dropped off the back with a couple of others. We slogged it out for a few more k's and my body was screaming! My back hurt, my shoulders hurt, and my legs felt like they were going to explode. I had to give up and the other 2 also decided to turn around for what I thought was going to be a relaxing decent.

WRONG....when we turned we were met with about a 22kph headwind with gusts up to 30kph. We copped this for about 85% of the return trip. I new it was going to be windy, but didn't think it would pick up so early.

The main group passed us on the decent, we tried to catch their wheels but it was a fruitless exercise and we gave up pretty quick.

We finally made it back to Burleigh for a choccy milk and a coffee, then a nice easy 6.5 Km plod home (with a howling tailwind ).

Here's the route profile from bikely:

The worse part of it all was when I mapped this after the ride, the end of the road (where the main group rode to) was only another 1.5km away!

For all the pain and agony (which I'm sure will get worse tonight) this was one brilliant ride and I'll definitely be making this a regular Thankfully I've got a rest day tomorrow with a flat 50km on Saturday morning.

Although I fell short on this weeks target distance, I felt it was a very productive week, with most of the rides at a much higher intensity than usual (particularly Thursday's).

The target for week 6 was: 3 x 50km + 1 x 80km

Rides:
Tuesday: 53.1km in 2:02:52 avg speed of 25.9kph (damn traffic lights etc). A good ride following the beachfront up to Broadbeach, down to Coolangatta then back home. The first 40km I stuck to about 27kph actual riding speed, and at the turn around in Coolangatta decided to ramp it up a bit and managed to do the last 13.1km with an average riding speed of about 32kph (pretty good for me on my own).

Thursday: My first group ride on a public road, and first crack at a reasonable climb. This ride up the Currumbin Valley almost killed me (see thursdays post) 62.2km in 2:18:38 avg speed of 27.0kph.

Saturday: Did the group training ride at Luke Harrop Circuit in Runaway Bay again for about 19km or so, followed by a leisurely 2 or3 k's for a quick coffee, and finishing off with a fairly intense solo 27 or so k's up to Paradise Point, down to Southport and back. All up 50.0km in 1:52:05 avg speed 26.7kph.

Yesterday: Although the numbers aren't too flash I'm fairly happy with it. Had a dinner with the mother in law in Brisbane Saturday night, got home about 12:30am and couldn't get to sleep until after 2:30am. Was going to do my ride before brunch with my parents at 10:30, but as I didn't get out of bed till 9ish, that didn't happen. got home about 1sh and thought bugger the ride. Too tired and it was blowing a gale. About 4ish the wind dropped ever so slightly (still a 28kph southerly with 42kph gusts) and I thought I might as well get some k's under the belt.

Headed south and it was damn hard work. struggled to maintain 23kph and the gusts almost blew off the bike or into the traffic a few times. Got down to Coolangatta and decided enough was enough and headed back home, thankfully with the southerly behind me! Managed to do 30.9km in 1:11:55 avg speed of 25.7km.

Total for the week: Target = 230km, Achieved = 196.6km

Today's a rest day, although we start up dancing again tonight (yes, my wife and I have been doing Rock n roll dancing for about 2 years now) so it'll be interesting to see how this week goes with 2 nights dancing and 3 x 50km + 1 x 90km rides as the target.

Prior to the group ride that we do on the weekend, I did an extra 28km loop that I normally do before the ride to warm up. Bloody headwind was direct in my face for at least 10km of it, and slowed me down to 24 - 25 km/hr, and when I did get a bit of a tail wind, i was zooming along at 34 !!

I normally average 29.8 - 31.0 for this loop, but that morning only did 28. Then we did the Clarendon loop ride

Boy, did that bugger the legs, especially when we had the headwind going up the hill out of Clarendon !!

You have done well to get to 196km in the week. I managed 152 this week. Next challenge for me is the Mini Slam covering 109km in October ....

Guess I'll just have to get out there and climb, climb, climb, and then climb some more. Thankfully there are a heap of great rides here in the hinterland and Tweed Valley...just have to pluck up the courage to try them.

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